Bolb’s rueful laughter silenced the room.
The leading question was obvious, Miranda thought, but in avoiding it, Bolb had fallen into a trap better hidden. The tone of Bolb’s response had indeed been arrogant.
“Corbin does not merely wish to condemn,” Somney whispered. “He wants to see Bolb despised.”
Bolb was astute enough to sense the error in his disposition. His voice turned soft, gracious and reasonable.
“Let me explain my circumstances and my innocence will soon become clear,” he said.
“You have much to explain,” Corbin confirmed to the audience.
Without a jury, there was no need for a summation, so Corbin immediately turned his attention to the first of the charges.
“The least of your crimes is theft.”
“I am a wealthy man. I have no need to steal.”
“I will now list the many items missing from the Convergence’s inventory, which our investigation discovered concealed within your chambers. There are so many that I am able to display only a small selection.” Corbin took in hand a thick sheaf of papers and wielded them theatrically in the direction of the walnut table.
He called out the names of many mechanical parts. Each item was of little value alone, but the reading of them all, bolt by wire, took several minutes. Bolb attempted to interrupt but Corbin rode over his objections. By the end of it all, through the strength of accumulation, it seemed, even to Miranda, that Bolb had indeed taken a great deal. The master was unsettled. A sour look pinched his face.
“I admit that I took many things from the inventory. Maybe I was remiss in my recording of them. However, the borrowing of parts is commonplace in the Convergence. If every item had to be formally accounted for we would never get anything made.” There were a few murmurs of agreement from the crowd, which drew a raised eyebrow from Corbin. Sensing encouragement, Bolb elaborated, “Would you see us made scribes?”
Why does Bolb play to the audience, Miranda wondered, when they can do nothing to help him?
“I call Chairman Gleame as my first witness,” Corbin said. The hall fell silent as Gleame, previously obscured from Miranda’s view by the stage, rose to his feet. He made a gesture to the hall, as if to reassure them that he could salvage the situation through strength of reason. Despite that, Bolb flashed him a look of pure hate. Corbin’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “Chairman, am I correct in believing that the Honourable Company of Cunning has by-laws specific to the maintenance of its inventory?”
Gleame coughed.
“The laws of the Convergence are complicated and frequently revised. There are several relating to its inventory. Master Bolb is not lying when…”
Corbin slapped the side of the podium with his hand. “Chairman Gleame,” he cried, “your conjecture regarding Master Bolb’s veracity was not requested. I deem that comment unconfessional. Strike it from the record.” Corbin watched and waited as Daniel amended The Book of Inspection. “My question is simple. Does the Convergence maintain rules that require its stores to be kept safely? Or am I to understand that any vagabond or foreigner can freely take his pick?”
Gleame frowned deeply at the insinuation, but if he was angry with Corbin, he was clever enough to keep it from his voice.
“We have good laws,” he conceded.
“Would you say that those laws are written clearly?”
“I wrote them.”
Corbin produced an ancient scroll from the podium. “Would you like me to remind you of them?”
“No.” Gleame pinched his brow. “There is no need. The forty-fifth amendment of the Company’s constitution states that all items taken from an arcane inventory must be signed for by the master, or the one acting in his place, under the observation of a quartermaster. Any master seeking to invest magic in a device must obtain prior approval, and its form and properties must be recorded in the Convergence’s register. These things are well known.” Miranda could hear masters muttering uncomfortably all around her.
“Thank you, Chairman. That is all.” Gleame hesitated for a moment, weighing further comment. Corbin motioned for him to sit, and, after a brief consideration, he obeyed.
“Master Bolb, do you wish to amend your confession?” Corbin said. Bolb’s pate was crowned with heavy drops of sweat that sparkled under the cold light of the glow-stones. His face was contorted with anger. Miranda leaned forward in her chair. Surely, he wouldn’t contest what had been proved beyond a doubt.
He spoke with extreme reluctance. “On these points of law I was ignorant. My ignorance has no bearing on the justice of it. I must accept that my conduct was irregulatory.”
“Irregulatory? Later we shall discuss what you did with these stolen parts. What devices you made and the perverted uses you made of them.”
Bolb ground his teeth. “There is no need. In this matter I change my plea to guilty.”
“Louder,” Corbin insisted.
“Guilty,” Bolb called out. There were grumblings from the other masters in the hall. A slight smile played across Corbin’s lips. He addressed the hall with open arms.
“Finally, we are afforded a little truth.”
He made a signal to Daniel to record the admission, and returned to shuffling his papers. The chatter of the crowd grew loud as he prepared for the next charge.
“That’s a small verdict, resolved by a burn on the thumb and the payment of a fine,” Somney said.
Miranda knew. “He should never have contested it.” Somney nodded in agreement. Corbin rang his bell again.
“Master Bolb, do you intend to change your confession in regard to the other matters?”
“Of course not.”
Corbin shook his head sadly, as if he were trying to help, and that Bolb’s obstinacy was the true cause of the master’s torment. “Let us turn to the charge of attempted murder.” The crowd was intrigued. “Is it not true that you have attempted to take the life of Brother Miller on no less than three separate occasions?”
Corbin singled out Daniel with an outstretched finger.
“I thought the boy was a common thief,” Bolb protested. “All men have the right to defend themselves.”
“When resisting arrest? What about your attacks upon Albertus and Chairman Gleame?” He picked the victims out of the audience as he spoke. “I make no mention of myself, for it is the duty of a prosecutor to put himself in harm’s way to defend justice, and I do not wish to rely upon my own testimony.”
“I did not know that I was being arrested. That was later. The situation became confusing.” Bolb became defiant again. “No fair warnings were given.”
“On the occasion that my assistant overheard you conspiring with that most dreadful villain Riven Gahst, who recently escaped justice by taking his own life…” There were gasps and cries from the audience. “…did you not set your machines against him?”
“You weave a web of lies,” Bolb shouted, and Corbin smirked. That was a bad mistake, Miranda thought, to accuse a censor of lying.
Daniel was called as a witness. He recounted, briefly and in plain language, how he had followed Bolb into the catacombs beneath the Convergence, overheard the conversation between Bolb and a person then unknown, and fled from Bolb’s mechanical assailants. Entranced by the story, the audience did not see Miller for the scoundrel that he was, or protest his spying within the Convergence, but chose to see him as a brave and honest soldier. Miranda had no doubt that those listening would take his word over Bolb’s.
“There was no way you could have known who was behind that door, who it was that you set your poisonous machines against. What if it had been an unfortunate maid or engineer, without the martial skills of my young colleague?”
“My mechanicals were armed with paralytics, not poison!” Bolb protested.
“Then you admit that you set your creations against my colleague
, not for the last time, and that you meant him harm. You admit that you met with Gahst. That you conspired with him.”
Bolb turned to face the audience. “This young censor is unharmed. That boy, who lived amongst us like a spy or a thief, is unharmed. You can all see that. I am a master of the Convergence. If I wished him dead, his flesh would be scattered like leaves on the wind. I admit to two offences only. Theft and assault. I did not conspire. Rather I was misled by Riven Gahst in many matters. I am no traitor. Let me speak my part.”
Boos and catcalls came in reply. It seemed to Miranda that everything Bolb said brought the Convergence into disrepute, irrespective of the words he used.
“He admits assault,” Somney said dolefully. “Now he has lost the arm that was to be burnt. Maybe he doesn’t understand the penalties. If conspiracy is proved, his tongue will be pulled.”
The trial was not going well for Bolb. Miranda could feel the crowd’s hostility growing. Nobody wanted to side with a loser. Some would now be thinking that it would be better for the Honourable Company if Bolb were simply gone, and the scandal with him. They are so wrong, Miranda thought, and felt the upset power of the Convergence convulse and groan beneath her.
Corbin returned to the podium. “Your admissions are purely a matter of record, irrelevant to the facts of justice. Nonetheless, I am interested to hear your story. Please explain how you were ‘tricked’ into conspiracy. That is not a defence I have heard before.”
“I took mechanical parts in secret. I admit to that – I stole them, if you must – to make the hand you now possess. Gahst tricked me into making it for him. He told me it would carry a message to the Wise Council. If I had known his true purpose, of what would happen to Brother Adelmus, I would never have helped him.”
“Why the secrecy? What was it that required concealment?”
“Gahst told me that the work we do here is harmful. Out of control. That the Hidd…” Several of the masters stood, and Bolb stopped himself. “That we have overstretched our powers. Taken too much. Given too little.”
There were hisses from the crowd. Corbin paced the stage.
“I have heard similar from the mouths of Freeborn, and renegade godsworn. You say he convinced you of that. Your conspiracy led to the death of Brother Adelmus. Of that, we are certain. Nevertheless, you say you claim to have acted to save the Convergence from itself. That you are not a traitor, but a hero.”
“Yes, well, not a hero, but…”
“You expect me to believe that Gahst convinced you that the work of the men sitting around us is a danger to the Unity?” Corbin gesticulated at the crowd. “Yet you did not resign, nor even slow your work? I can see from the records that in the last month alone you have fulfilled orders for a steam battalion and a ballroom’s worth of amber dancers. For these orders alone you received more than ten thousand pounds.”
“What else was I to do?”
“Did you ever raise your concerns with Chairman Gleame or the Convocation? Did you use your powers as a master to challenge the Convergence’s practices?”
Bolb shook his head mournfully.
“I call as my next witness Miranda, Ward of the Duchess.”
The summons came without warning, landed in her lap like a grenado. The crowd gasped in surprise. Miranda rose to her feet and saw Lavety staring at her suspiciously from across the stage. She instinctively looked to Daniel for reassurance and hated herself for it.
At Corbin’s direction Miranda related her finding of the hand in the dunes of Seascale Bay, and her examination of it. She omitted many details – her delay in bringing the hand to Gleame, her tryst with the miller – but Corbin did not press her on those points. Compared to his demeanour with the other witnesses his tone was pleasant – serious but also courteous.
“What did you make of the hand and its contents?”
“The hand carried information.”
“What kind of information?” Miranda glared at Daniel, the bastard who had dropped her into this mess in the first place. He was staring at her in puppy-eyed wonder. It was pathetic.
She raised her voice for the crowd. “An inventory of all the devices manufactured at the Convergence and a summary of the magic invested in them. It also contains a calculation of how much magic the Honourable Company has invested.”
Corbin silenced her. “The hekalogical details are unimportant. This list you describe, does it include descriptions of all the weapons and mechanicals that the Convergence has delivered to the military powers of this land, for our mutual defence? Their power and abilities.”
“Not exclusively.”
“Yes or no?”
“The list is complete, without exceptions. Everything’s listed.”
“Including the military devices. Do you suppose that information would be of benefit to the enemies of the Unity?”
Miranda felt cold sweat on her brow. I am not helping Bolb’s case, she thought, I am making things worse. She coughed to ease her tightening throat.
“I am no expert in military affairs,” she said. Someone in the audience laughed. Baldwin, probably.
“Indulge me. I am interested in your opinion.” Corbin looked at her knowingly, as if he had her at an impossible advantage. Daniel has told him everything, she thought. Even our act of loving is described in that red book of his, to be laughed at and ogled over. She boiled with humiliation. The pillow knife was not enough, she decided. She would curse Daniel. Devise a spell so powerful it would shrivel his balls into tiny black turds.
“I imagine so.”
“That is all.”
Miranda fought the urge to sit down. Her testimony had been ruinous for Bolb, but the relief of her dismissal was hard to ignore. Corbin attended to his papers.
“Prosecutor Corbin. If I may,” she called out.
“You are dismissed,” he replied unconcerned. Something in her snapped then. She was tired of being told what to do by men.
“The information in the hand. It could be interpreted as a warning, if you believed Master Gahst’s theories.” There were sounds of amazement from around the hall. Gleame stood abruptly, to the confusion of the masters and guards that surrounded him, and stared at Miranda, eyes ablaze.
“Lady Miranda,” Corbin said gently, and looked pointedly in Daniel’s direction as if to warn her. She dug her nails into her palms and met his gaze with steely eyes. Then Corbin noticed that Gleame had risen, and that a tension had arisen in the theatre that was not of his own making.
“Who am I to deny a lady? You say that you understand Gahst’s theories. What is it about these that you want to tell us? Have you uncovered some great secret?”
The world froze in anticipation of her answer, even Somney, down by her side. Corbin’s eyes goaded her on, dared her to continue.
She thought she saw something then, something hidden deep within his gaze. A righteous light, like the cleansing flames of a tar barrel awaiting a heretic, or the light of a hot iron waiting to be pressed into bare flesh. The unalloyed certainty of a fanatical mind. Is that what he really wants? To bring down the Convergence? To end its entire works and to make a bonfire of those who have performed them?
That was a lot to read into a stare. Maybe it was only her imagination. Maybe it wasn’t.
“I meant only to say that I can see how Bolb could have been fooled.”
“By Gahst’s theories. Because there is some merit to them?”
“No. None at all. They are gibberish.”
“Believable?”
“The works of a madman.”
Corbin smiled a peculiar smile. “A madman or a man who wished to be seen as one. I thank you for your service.” He spoke to the entire audience. “A maiden’s gentle temperament is inclined towards pity, which is only natural, but Miranda’s sympathy is misplaced. You may think me severe, but this is what you do not know: the Brothe
rhood of Censors has apprehended a secret shipment of gold bound for the Convergence. That gold was carried by agents of the Evangelicy. It was meant as payment for master Bolb’s hand.”
There were cries of outrage from the floor. Miranda flopped back into her chair like a discarded puppet.
“I am no traitor,” Bolb pleaded. “I thought the message was for the Wise Council. I realise now that I have been played for a fool – by a madman.”
“After all that has been said, do you believe that there is a single person in this room who would take you for a hero?”
“I am no hero.”
“Then why did you participate in this plan? What did you hope to achieve?”
“A scandal. I thought that our beloved chairman would be forced to resign, that I might take his place.” There were cries of “Shame” from the audience. Bolb turned angrily on the crowd. “The Convergence would not exist if it were not for me. Nobody has brought the company more profit. I am becoming an old man. When will it be my turn?”
The room grew angrier as Bolb ranted. Catcalls, crumpled balls of paper and shoes were flung in his direction. Corbin allowed himself a self-satisfied smirk.
Gleame stood again, and though his face was clouded, he spoke calmly.
“Prosecutor Corbin. You have handled this trial admirably. The misdeeds that you have uncovered are terrible and lessons must be learnt. The Honourable Company will be eternally grateful – but I ask you to consider mercy. Dealing with the arcane can corrupt the minds of the noblest men. Bolb has served the Honourable Company and the Unity faithfully for many years. He is like a son to me, my greatest apprentice. Punish him as you must, and I assure you that he shall never work magic again, but please – if he is a traitor he is one by accident, not design.”
Somney held his face in his hands. “No. This is exactly what he wants,” he whispered.
“Take his arm – take his tongue if you must,” Gleame continued, “but Bolb’s death would serve no purpose. I beg for clemency.”
“Kill him,” called voices from the crowd. “Mercy,” cried a few others.
The Censor's Hand: Book One of the Thrice~Crossed Swords Trilogy Page 41